Completely agree!
I read this (iOS) as well and was quite amazed. In Germany and many other Central European countries, iOS is only used by around 30% of people, while android is used by 70%. In addition, iOS phones are usually the ones not owned by iNat-users (e.g. students) due to the high price and many other reasons. If you look up the number of European iNat-Users, you would think this should have some influence on the decision, especially given the numbers from the USA, in which usage is slightly over 50/50. This decision was probably made only with USA-users in mind.
There are a few reasons. One is that iNat Android has more functionality than iNat Classic for iOS, like a much better Explore screen, etc., so we wanted to bring some of that to iOS users, to give the apps a bit more parity. The other is that iOS/Apple is a more controlled ecosystem, meaning there are fewer OS and device differences to take into account when creating the app. On Android there are a huge number of differences due to the many manufacturers and the different ways they implement Android OS across their devices.
So my understanding is that, after weighting the various pros and cons, it’s more straightforward to develop for iOS. Doing so allowed us to put out a usable new app that had more functionality than iNat Classic, and get people using it and giving us feedback not just about bugs but about design and workflow. We could then make design and other changes based on feedback from these users, without also having to take into account the bugs and issues that come along with releasing on a myriad of Android devices. Now that the app is in a more mature state, design and workflow-wise, we’ve started closed beta Android testing to better understand which bugs are coming up on Android devices, and will open up beta testing in the next few months.
Problem is here, like mentioned before, that you get feedback from a certain type of user. iOS Systems are hardly used by people with lower or actually low incomes (there are even studies on it), poor internet connection or people that use several devices for different purposes (I see a lot of naturalists doing this). In addition, a quite large part of iOS users are nonempirically connected to this system (some are even described as cult-like believers) to the point that the system is never blamed for anything, but the connection, apps whatever, and may report bugs and experience differently than android users. That’s why I personally would not test an app on iOS first, and then on other systems. This is not my opinion alone, I asked a friend of mine in marketing in Frankfurt, he said the same thing. Let’s hope Android testing will then be very extensive.
Your previous post said:
Which was an statement made with no evidence, and one that I felt needed some push back from someone who was actually there when the decision was made. So I provided you with our reasoning. I think reasonable people can disagree on which approach is better, big decisions are difficult. Either way, the decision has been made and currently the app is in closed beta for Android which includes people from multiple countries and continents, then the beta will be opened up more broadly in a few months. When that happens, you and anyone else can provide feedback and we’ll take the feedback into account.